The more people get to know me, the less they like me

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With most NTs, the first meeting of two people is the bottom from which the relationship just gets better and better until it becomes a close friendship, intimate relationship or just an acquaintance you get well along with.

With me however, I feel that I usually make a good first impression with people. I seem interested in them, I try talking to them and the first conversation or meeting usually goes well. It's when I meet them for the second or third time and they expect that the relationship should start to build that it begins to spiral miserably out of control. I have no idea what I do wrong, the most likely culprit could be that I say the wrong things, as I very, very rarely know what to say in those terrible informal situations, I just take a guess, sometimes other people find it interesting or funny, but way to many times they find it stupid or inappropriate. Whenever there are defined roles involved, say an interview, talking to a teacher, talking with classmates about academic topics, dealing with police and other public servants, customer service where I work etc, there are nobody who can pick out any difference between me and NTs.

It's when people try to befriend me that everything goes wrong. It feels so terrible, I love being around people, but I always do something wrong that ruins everything...

I know how you feel.

I don't think they start to hate me, but I do know that they seem willing to become my friend at first but then find there's something offish about me so they just stay acquaintences with me.

Because I only have very mild ASD, it's harder to know where my social awkwardness begins and where it ends, so I can't really pinpoint anything and try to work on it. I have a sense of humour, I can read between the lines easily, I naturally smile and make eye contact (I've never had an issue with this), I can pick up on body language and other non-verbal cues, I can empathise, I do small talk, I don't ask too many personal questions, I don't go on about myself or my special interests (I don't even have any), I don't have monotone voice, I don't flap my hands or display other odd movements, I know how to tell a white lie and how lies work, my emotions and body language are as easy to read as anyone else's.....

I suppose I could go on forever here. But there's still something a bit offish about me. There must be, otherwise people will want to become closer to me. But I did have bad experiences with friendships in the past, so maybe now I kind of give off this ''don't get too emotionally close to me'' signals. I think I can't always keep that balance between not being too clingy but not being too distant. So I tend to lean towards one or the other. I have all the other social skills instinctively. This one social skill I have trouble with is quite hard to work on. So I suppose I have to accept that I will mostly just have acquaintences all my life.

I am shy too. That also might be why.

I have the same problem.

I've "known" you for about a year or so---and I still wish I could go hiking with you

I experience something similar for a larger proportion than not.

I do have some lasting friendships in which this has not apparently happened. But for the most part, yes, most people seem to like me less and less the more they know me, and the longer they know me.

I seem to make a fairly good first impression, probably because I'm actively trying to employ all the right body language and social ways that I've learned is how to fit in. I was a very withdrawn child and teenager, and I deliberately forced myself to be "more NT" in social matters just to get on in the world.

So most people who meet me, I think generally they find me pleasant, warm, friendly and all the right things. I get good responses and everything indicates they like me.

Then as time goes on, misunderstandings accumulate, and things "go sour." They react to me worse and worse, and I usually can't figure out specifically what it is I've said wrong or done wrong.

I have a client like this at the moment. She started out liking me so much she enthusiastically told me so, and everything between us was really, really great. She was more like a friend and we got along fine.

Now, just a few years later, even though she's still my client, everything is different. She acts like I'm an irritant. There's a coldness when she looks at me. I'm actually not bad at reading facial and body language -- my thing is I can tell very sensitively what someone's mood is, but the hitch is, I can't figure out why that mood is what's happening with them.

I seem to pick up on people's body language but it's the "why" I can't figure out about why they're happy or sad or pissed off with me. I just sense they're pissed off with me, or not as the case may.

She also now avoids talking to me. To be honest I'm not always up for a chat myself, but now she actively makes excuses to not interact with me.

This isn't the only stuff -- there is a whole bunch of other things where she has slighted me and I'm not imagining things.

It's something I've come up against not for the first time.

It's also why my conventional work situations always wound up going seriously south/pear shaped in very short periods. Everything in my workplace would start out fine, bosses liked me, co-workers liked me, then the rot set in and "familiarity bred contempt."

I wound up with such drama that I either quit and walked out myself because I couldn't stand it anymore or I was told to quit/fired.

Some of it is I think misunderstandings. I put my foot in my mouth during even the most light hearted exchanges, when meaning ZERO ill intentions, yet because it can be days later (days of weird looks and coldness from the person) that I realize I said something that got taken the wrong way, I never get to say "Oops didn't mean that the way it came out."

I'm not even talking about when you get into an argument with someone; I speak my mind in a conflict but I'm not even talking about those occasions -- sometimes those never even happen with that particular person. It's in the pleasant conversations that I've still managed to disgrace myself!

That's the hard part. Not knowing what I've done wrong especially when it's never been an actual conflict situation, where I could understand, well, it's a clash we've had. I'm talking just normal, nice interactions but I've managed to do something that makes the person hate me.

Then this stuff accumulates, it grows like a pile of resentments being collected by everyone around me, or conversely they just realize more and more that I can be "weird" even though at first I seemed "normal" -- and yeah, it's all gone. I'm disliked and shunned.

it's the zen art of undertrying.

and plus, I think NTs deal with much bigger numbers. for example, maybe having twelve acquaintances for every person in beginning stages of friendship. I'm just guessing at the numbers, but I think the numbers are significantly bigger than what we typically deal with.

NT's sometimes have an ability of revealing a weakness, but they do so in a brief way and that's important. And it is taking a risk. The person either likes you more for the weakness, or they don't.

I experience precisely
the same as your original post describes.